Page 4 of The Bordeaux Book Club

She meant it too, she realised. While she hadn’t been overjoyed at the prospect, now she was here and there were enough of them to make a decent go of it, she started to wonder whether the group might be just what she needed to get out of her reading slump. Or, well, her slump in general. She’d thought, before moving to France, that she’d have enough time to read as much as she wanted here – something she’d had to squeeze into her commutes or the brief moments of free time she’d had before bed in the past. But there was always something else to do. Always work, or the garden, or something to sort out for Scarlett’s school. At least this would force her to prioritise something more pleasant.

‘I thought the first meeting could be at mine,’ Grace rose to her feet with a barely perceptible grimace of pain and walked over to the dresser that she’d rescued and repurposed with chalk paint last summer. Opening one of the drawers, she pulled out a stack of books. ‘And – we agreed, didn’t we, that we’d each choose a book. Mine’sGreat Expectations. Now we don’t have to start with this, and I’m open to suggestions. But I just so happen to have accumulated a few copies of this one over the years. Such a favourite! I even managed to pick up a couple this week at the Anglophone book sale. So it might be easy to…’

She handed out the slightly worn copies like a teacher at the start of a lesson, smiling indulgently as each of her new recruits took one from her outstretched hand. Leah looked at the fellow members of what Grace had already named ‘The Bordeaux Book Club’ and caught the eye of Alfie, who seemed to be regarding the brick of a book Grace had gifted him with a slight grimace on his face.

Clearly no one else was going to say anything. But Leah felt suddenly that the wrong choice at this stage might mean nobody turning up to the first real meeting.

‘I wondered,’ she said, feeling nervous as if she was approaching a predator, ‘whether we might start with something lighter.’ She nodded at Alfie as if to sayI’ve got your back– because, really, it was important to encourage young people to read and Dickens was quite an ambitious start for what was meant to be a casual, pleasant club experience.

Grace wheeled around. ‘Lighter?’ she said, her eyebrows raised. ‘But this isGreat Expectations!’

‘But… perhaps something… modern?’ Leah’s mouth felt dry.

Grace laughed. ‘I think we can tell someone hasn’t read the book yet,’ she said. ‘There’s incredible humour inGreat Expectations, and honestly, Dickens is timeless. What better than to read about the human experience?’ she said. ‘All manner of life is here.’ She smiled at the rest of them, assuming their agreement.

‘Of course,’ Leah said, sitting back. The springs of the vintage sofa creaked underneath her. ‘It was just an idea. Ihaveactually read…’

‘No, I think it sounds great,’ said George, beaming at Grace before turning the book over in his hands and reading the back. ‘Pip,’ he said, to no one in particular, as he scanned the blurb. He looked at Leah and gave an apologetic wink at having sided with Grace and she smiled.

‘Thanks Grace,’ Monica said, as she received her own copy. She set it in her lap of and drummed at it lightly with her long, slender fingers. Leah noticed that all but one of her nails were chewed almost down to the skin.

‘It’s fine,’ Alfie said, turning the book over and over in his hands. ‘My mum loves Dickens.’

George cleared his throat. ‘And the Bordeaux?’ he enquired.

‘Sorry?’ Grace turned, her blonde hair staying fixedly in position.

‘Well,’ he said, running a nervous hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, ‘I thought… I assumed when I saw the name that this was going to be a…’

‘A…?’ Grace prompted, back in teacher mode.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘A wine club too.’

‘Whatever gave you that impression?’ her voice sounded slightly sharp, as if she was insulted by the idea that her book group in itself, wasn’t enough to have tempted the four of them into her living room.

‘The…’ George coloured slightly and shifted in his seat, still clutching his copy of the Dickens classic, ‘well, the Bordeaux bit.’

‘Oh,’ Grace seemed momentarily flummoxed. ‘I suppose that was more of a location thing. And… well, a bit of alliteration.’

‘Oh. It’s just… aren’t we in Cenac?’

Grace turned herself fully to face him. ‘Cenac, Bordeaux,’ she said firmly.

Grace was fond of describing herself as living ‘in Bordeaux’ and it wasn’t the first time this had caused confusion. The first time Leah had ‘popped round’, she’d found that instead of the five-minute drive she’d imagined, she’d had to clock up thirty minutes to get to Grace’s stone cottage, tucked away in a little commune, rather than in the heart of the city as she’d imagined.

‘Right,’ George nodded, clearly embarrassed at his faux pas.

‘A bit of wine could be fun?’ Leah ventured, in an attempt to rescue him. She felt all eyes – Alfie, Monica, George and Grace – fix on her. ‘Well, it could be nice if we all chose, um, local wine to sample when we discussed the books?’ she suggested.

‘Well, I suppose I’d already thought we’d sort out some nibbles while we talk, that kind of thing…’ Grace said after a moment’s silence.

The others – already in awe of Grace, it seemed – quickly agreed that yes, it did sound like a good idea.

‘Bordeaux in Bordeaux,’ Leah quipped, hoping to appease herself in Grace’s eyes.

Yes, Grace could be a lot, sometimes. Bordering on interfering. But her heart seemed to be in the right place. It had taken Leah a little while to realise this – and in fact, she’d spent some of their initial weeks avoiding spending too much time with the woman. ‘I don’t want to encourage her,’ she’d told Nathan at the time.

She’d sometimes heard people comment or gossip about Grace – once or twice heard her referred to as a ‘busybody’ or a ‘do-gooder’ – and she understood what they meant. A little of Grace went a long way at times. But there was good there – a desire to help, underneath it all.

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